Ainsworth Says State Has Cash on Hand to Build Mobile River Bridge Without Tolls

Alabama Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth told a room full of Mobile County Republicans this week that state coffers are flush enough to cover construction of the long-planned Mobile River Bridge without charging drivers a toll to cross it.

Ainsworth fielded the question during a Monday evening meeting of the Mobile County Republican Party at Holy Cross Lutheran Church on Airport Boulevard, where the bridge project has become one of the most persistent topics of local political conversation. His answer was direct.

“We have the money to do it,” Ainsworth told the crowd. “It has to be a priority of the (state) DOT. Certainly, the money is there.”

The lieutenant governor pointed to healthy surpluses in both the state’s Education Trust Fund and its General Fund as evidence that Alabama could shoulder the cost of the bridge and its approaches without leaning on toll revenue collected from commuters and truckers who use the span every day.

“The state’s doing well,” he said.

Ainsworth framed the case for state funding in business terms, arguing that smart investors put their money where growth is already happening. With expansion underway at the Port of Mobile and hiring picking up in the region’s aerospace sector, he said both sides of Mobile Bay are experiencing exactly the kind of momentum that should draw state dollars rather than new fees on residents.

“This part of the state is booming,” Ainsworth said. “We’ve got to invest in that.”

The comments come on the heels of a coordinated push by local planning agencies to shape how the bridge project is ultimately financed. Last month, the Mobile and Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organizations held a special joint meeting in Daphne, where they hammered out a framework document sent to Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper.

That framework asks the state to cap any toll on personal vehicles at $2.50 and to limit tolling strictly to newly built infrastructure, rather than existing roadways drivers already use for free. It also calls for all toll revenue collected from the project to go exclusively toward paying down the project’s construction debt, with tolling ending entirely once that debt is retired. Any additional federal or state funding that becomes available, the MPOs argued, should likewise be directed at paying down the debt faster, shortening the life of any toll rather than being spent elsewhere.

The two planning organizations were emphatic on one point in particular: revenue generated by the bridge and its tolls should be used only for the bridge project itself, not diverted to other transportation needs across the state.

The MPOs’ letter also pushed for the state to offer a no-toll option for personal vehicles, giving drivers an alternate route that would not require paying a fee to cross the Mobile River. Beyond financing details, the letter urged the Alabama Department of Transportation to pursue a long-term, comprehensive solution to the region’s traffic bottleneck rather than the piecemeal, phased approach that has characterized much of the project’s history to date.

The Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project has been discussed for years as a way to relieve chronic congestion on Interstate 10 through downtown Mobile and across the Bayway, a corridor regional leaders and business groups have long identified as a drag on economic growth and a daily headache for commuters. How the project gets paid for, however, has remained the central sticking point, with tolling proposals repeatedly drawing pushback from residents and elected officials on both sides of the bay.

Ainsworth’s remarks add a prominent statewide voice to that debate, aligning him with local leaders who have pressed for the state to tap existing surpluses rather than impose new charges on the driving public. Whether the Alabama Department of Transportation ultimately adopts that approach will depend on decisions still to come as the agency finalizes its funding plan for the bridge.

The Project and Its History

The Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project calls for a new bridge over the Mobile River and a wider, elevated Bayway carrying Interstate 10 across Mobile Bay. An earlier ALDOT financing plan built around a toll of up to $6 drew heavy opposition, and in August 2019 the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization voted to remove the project from its transportation plan, halting that version of the proposal.

Metropolitan planning organizations are federally required transportation planning bodies for urbanized areas, and a highway project generally must be included in an MPO’s plans to receive federal funding. That is why the Mobile and Eastern Shore MPOs’ positions carry weight in how the bridge is financed.

Related coverage from South AL News

• ALDOT Agrees to Study Single-Phase Option for Mobile River Bridge After MPO Leaders Push Back
• Toll Rates Set for the Planned I-10 Bridge and New Bayway
• Toll Authority Approves $3.2 Billion Mobile River Bridge Financing, Sets $3 Toll
• Construction on new Mobile Bay I-10 toll bridge could begin in 2023